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Dawn Food ProductsDenver, CO Energy
efficient lamps and electronic ballast.Photo: www.coloradolighting.com Dawn Food Products is a wholesale distributor of bakery supplies. The family-run company is based in Jackson, Michigan, with over 40 manufacturing facilities and distribution centers located in the US, Canada, Europe and Latin America. Dawn Food Products has more than doubled net sales over the past 10 years, with revenues of $1.2 billion a year and 3,500 employees. Dawn recently implemented a lighting upgrade at its Denver, CO distribution center. The 45,000 square foot facility was built in the mid-1990's and is leased to Dawn Food Products. The warehouse was lit with 400-watt metal halide lights which are on 24 hours a day, five days a week, with more limited hours on weekends. Lighting accounted for approximately 40% of Dawn's energy expense. With an interest in improving lighting quality as well as saving energy and money, Dawn Food Products contracted with Colorado Lighting, Inc., a woman-owned, family-run business, to retrofit the building with more efficient and effective illumination. Colorado Lighting replaced all the metal halide fixtures with T8 fluorescent fixtures, and installed motion-controlled switches. Because the facility is involved with food service and processing, GE covRGuard lamps were used throughout. (These more expensive lamps have a polycarbonate coating on the tubes to contain broken glass) The new fixtures were located strategically to provide optimal lighting for Dawn's operations, and they were wired and mounted in such a way that they can be easily moved if another tenant with different lighting needs moves into the facility at a later date. The lighting retrofit is expected to save 115,000 kWh of electricity annually, as well as greater than 50% load reduction, from 32 KW to 15.3 KW. This translates into annual energy cost savings for the company of approximately $9,400, which represents a 15-20% reduction in overall energy costs for the facility. The total project cost was roughly $26,000. The electric utility, Xcel Energy, provided $11,200 in rebates under their prescriptive rebate program, which brought the initial cost down dramatically. After the rebate, the project is expected to pay for itself in 19 months, with Dawn benefitting into the future with ongoing energy cost savings of about $800 per month. |
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Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, 2334 North Broadway, Suite A ,
Boulder, CO 80304 phone: 303.447.0078 fax: 303.447.0158 email: info@swenergy.org |
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